Search for Truth –
its implications

There are two ways to view today’s rally for the Truth. One is to consider its national impact and second, to view it as a precursor of local efforts to determine transparency in the handling of government funds and projects.

Not that the rally today is right per se, and the conclusions reached are correct. They are, for the most part, anchored on impressions which are based on questionable perceptions and premises.

But our Church and other leaders seem to have succumbed to the impression that everything that Rodolfo Noel Lozada, erstwhile president of the Philippine Forest Corp., had been telling the truth and nothing but . . . .

Those have been aggravated by the efforts by government agencies and bureaucrats to demolish the reputation and testimonies of those who had exposed the alleged shenanigans in the ZTE-NBN broadband deal.

What worsened the situation is that the hate-filled anti-Gloria elements among powerful political forces have stoked the frustrations of people against the administration. And have succeed in arousing public indignation against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her coteries of lapdogs who are simply out to please their leader regardless of the cost.

Instead of reigning them in, the President appears to have succumbed to the misguided efforts, to defend her governance to the point that her underlings have gone beyond the boundaries of a calibrated counter that could have gradually steered the discussion to a more serious and sober analysis of facts and evidence.

The Filipino, by nature, loves an underdog. Thus, when government agencies and officials started cracking down on Lozada and his allies they only succeeded in convincing the public that GMA and her allies were trying to suppress the truth.

But there are some disturbing facets of Lozada’s story of how he defected to the opposition side only at the last moment. As he claimed, it was only after his realization that he could have been liquidated by government agents post his “kidnapping.”

Now, there are some loopholes in that story, although admittedly the contrived efforts by government to demolish that story-line only served to reinforce that impression that, after all the circumstances, Lozada had actually been abducted.

But there remains the simple fact that Senator Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal had admitted having talked with Lozada and Secretary Romulo Neri as far back as November last year.

So, in short, his testimony before the Senate was not as spontaneous as he claimed. Per se, that it cast doubts into the Lozada version of the story. It should make people realize that we could have been had by a telenovela.

Unfortunately, the government has lost so much of its credibility that its fumbling explanations of what really had happened fell flat on their faces.

And, the initial impression of a heroic courage by Lozada to spell the beans on the ZTE-NBN broadband deal became gospel truth. Now, anybody who tries to demolish his story becomes a suspect. Even a paid hack of GMA.

The images projected by television refuse to die and the nation seems to have become mesmerized by the heroic figure of Lozada and the sisters and religious who flocked to his side purportedly to protect him.

But there are those who view the proceedings with jaded eyes. That may be the reason why some bishops have taken a more cautious position than that by the more activist Church leaders.

They want to be fully satisfied that the mistakes they had seen are corrected and the entire record set right.

But, there is another thing that it unleashed. Which is that it has caught the imagination of people even in the countrysides. Thus, in some way, God has converted this episode in our country’s history to make people more conscious of their duty to look at government and demand transparency.

The nervousness on the part of the administration also indicates the fear that the whole momentum of communal action may undercut the term of President Arroyo. Farfetched, seemingly. But you don’t mobilize so many troops and police simply to guard against a ballyhooed assassination plots by three different groups of “enemies of the state”. An unbelievable tale, Besides, if there really exist such plots, they should  by now have captured some of them since the government seems to have known them from way back last year, according to the AFP chief of staff.

But the more important thing is that today’s mammoth rally will fire up the concern of locals to keep guard over the actuations of their congressmen and local politicians. That, at least, should spur the moral rejuvenation program. Which means that people are going to get more involved with government and political leaders.

So that, per se, what seems to be wrong is actually something positive for the country.*

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